Mr. Pádraig Dalton:

This came up in other fora recently. There have been suggestions regarding our involvement. As the committee is aware, an expert group on the cost of insurance has been established by the Minister of State, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, and the CSO is sitting on that sub-group. We are actively involved in that sub-group which, I understand, will report by the end of October. We will not pre-empt the findings of that report, but subject to them we will then determine how best the CSO can support the provision of more evidence in this area.

It is important to remember the mandate and role of the CFO. When we become involved, the information we compile legally can only be used for statistical purposes. It cannot be used for regulatory or administrative purposes. Of course, we can only put aggregate statistical data into the public domain. The CSO can provide support, but only within the framework of our mandate. We are happy to provide support and can see that we would have a role to play, but the main question is on what is the appropriate data source for some of this information, where is it best gathered and how is it subsequently best exploited to inform discussions. We can give our expertise and input into that discussion very constructively.